The 1st unauthorized biography of the wildly controversial, groundbreaking feminist has already caused headlines in England & Australia. Greer has called Wallace “a dung beetle” & “flesh-eating bacteria” for daring to write about her. Living her own flamboyant fusion of feminism & sexual freedom with tumultuous results, Greer put theory into practice. When she contrasted this version of feminism with conventional mores in The Female Eunuch, highlighting the extent to which women were the constructs & handmaidens of men, the shock of recognition it produced was profound. The women of an entire generation were compelled to reconsider their lives, their partners, their families, their work, their whole way of being. Later characterizations of Greer as a “bad” feminist or an “anti-feminist” miss the point. Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew portrays an exceptionally talented, spirited, gutsy woman at odds with the family & era into which she was born, who went on to have a major, if ambiguous, impact on women in her time. Since then, Greer has continually challenged feminist & sexual orthodoxies, confounding the women’s movement & generating headlines for more than three decades.
“I don’t doubt Greer would have hated this. Oh wait. Yep. Just looked it up. She did. Seems she responded to the Wallace bio with “hurtful personal attacks”. Thing is, The Female Eunuch is a sloppy call to arms for disenfranchised woman to throw off the yoke of absolutely everything (themselves, other women, men, fathers, mothers, property, morals, sexual restrictions of all kind, government, your sleazy boss). It did one thing only and that was to get women angry. This unfocused aggression became fuel for the more productive/coherent/academic among the 2nd wave feminist movement to make traction with their own goals. Greer is no dummy though, she just was never really all that interested in helping a sister out.
Most interesting was her movement through the student rags and libertarian/anarchist groups of Melbourne and Sydney in the 50s and 60s. Reich and Anderson being hugely influential and helping foster a sexual revolution of which Greer was very much a leading spokesperson.
Despite her lovingly critical tone, the Wallace biography really did help humanize Greer for me. She had a rough trot, I guess. Greer has never been afraid to write what she thinks (will shock), even if she fatally contradicts herself a few pages on. – Goodreads review
Condition: Great lightly used condition
Hardback
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